“Grace over grades” is the motto of my school district during Remote Instruction and I love it.
As an educator and parent I am keenly aware of how overwhelmed students and parents alike are right now. Trying to keep up with our own workloads, assignments for multiple children, deadlines, housekeeping, meals, shopping (which has become a daunting experience in and of itself) is too much. Dealing with children and their schooling was the number one prayer request in my community group this week. I personally have had moments where I have thought, “does my kid really need to do this art assignment this week?” And I’m an art teacher!
Now is the moment in education when we should step back, take a deep breath and reevaluate what is important. I’ve seen memes and posts on social media that express this idea by letting parents know that as educators, it is our job to catch the students up academically, when they do return to a traditional academic setting, however, we can’t do that if students are “broken” spiritually and emotionally.
I’ve seen this with my own students and child firsthand. My senior students in particular are really feeling the emotional toll of having everything they were looking forward to cancelled, such as prom, senior trips, graduation, etc. Everything is cancelled, except school. How depressing! My kindergartener receives 8 page lesson plans per week. How daunting! We need to all stop and realize that this is not a normal situation and we should not treat it as such.
I recently read an article on remote learning in Yahoo News that cited research stating elementary students should not do academic work for more than two hours per day. 20-60 minutes is ideal for younger children.
(Image – ISBE.net)
Parents are not teachers, sight words may not be the most important thing to learn right now, and empathy and compassion will go a lot farther than rubrics and numerical grades.
So, if you come to my house (which you can’t do because we are social distancing) you will find my daughter watching a lot more PBS Kids, YouTube, and Netflix than usual, making her own art out of construction paper and play-doh, helping us with household chores, making her own lunch, going for daily walks with the dog, zooming with her grandmother, taking an online cooking class, and spending about 30 minutes per day on “school.”
Her social and emotional well-being right now is paramount. The rest can come later.
